The Best Bad Birthday Ever
by thedreamygirl
Summary: Haley has had a long run of bad birthday celebrations, and it appears her nineteenth birthday won’t be any different as it coincides with her first day at college. That is, until she finds a halfnaked man in her bedroom.
1. The Mr Sexy Incident

**Title:** The Best Bad Birthday Ever

**Author:** Hana (thedreamygirl)  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count (whole story): 4,211  
Chapter: **1 of 2  
**Pairing:** Nathan/Haley  
**Spoilers:** Totally AU

**Summary:** Haley has had a long run of bad birthday celebrations, and it appears her nineteenth birthday won't be any different as it coincides with her first day at college. That is, until she finds a half-naked man in her bedroom.

**Author's Note:** Written for The And Many More… Challenge at dareyoutowrite. For those of you following my story Always Love I am working on the next chapter and I'm hoping to have it out by the end of this week. Many thanks to Christina who beta'd this for me on such short notice.

**Chapter One**

Haley had a bad feeling about this.

She had been feeling off-balance since this morning, but had managed to convince herself that it was just nerves, which was understandable considering it was her first day at college. The start of a new life away from home. She wouldn't be seeing her friends everyday, or her parents. Okay, so, her parents weren't usually at home everyday anyway, but most days they were.

Everybody got nervous on their first day at college. Even Taylor, no matter what she had said. So Haley had derived some comfort from the fact that the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach was just a normal case of nerves, rather than the warning signal she had received the morning of all those birthdays that went wrong.

Like her seventh birthday when her balloon had popped, stinging her face, causing all her friends to laugh at her. Or her twelfth birthday where she had specifically requested a country theme due to her then-obsession with the cartoon Toy Story. That had resulted in her falling off her horse. That might not even be the right wording, Haley mused, since she hadn't even sat on the thing. She'd misplaced her foot when trying to get on the horse and ended up putting it in the air, landing flat on her ass, with sand in her eyes.

Or how about her eighteenth birthday just last year? Her so-called best friend Peyton had decided it would be funny to push her in the vicinity of the pool. As she had fallen in, Haley's foot had somehow managed to make contact with the only cracked tile in the whole pool, resulting in a little blood and a whole lot of commotion as her parents carted her off to the hospital for an injection.

Oh, yeah. Birthdays were a real tradition in Haley's life. But not for the reasons you would think.

As Haley shut the door behind her and stepped further into what was to be her room for the next year, at least, the smell of men's cologne got even stronger.

She had a really bad feeling about this.

Haley glanced over at the twin beds and saw some luggage already in the room, placed next to the bed against the wall. Which meant she got the one next to the window. Great.

Her roommate hadn't unpacked so she didn't have anything to gauge their personality from, aside from their preference for normal, plain black luggage. Well, that and their penchant for having male guests stay over, she noted, as she breathed in the scent coming from the connecting bathroom.

Haley sighed and put one of her bags onto the bed so she could start unpacking. At least her roommate didn't have any girly pink luggage. And maybe she could talk to her about the male guests at all times of the day thing. Or at least talk her into switching beds.

In the act of unzipping her bag, Haley heard the door to the bathroom open and out of the corner of her eye she spotted bare feet padding down towards the beds. They then stopped abruptly in front of her. With a wry smile on her face she turned to face the gentleman caller, intending to appear cool and casual about the situation. But when she laid eyes on what lay above his feet, she froze.

She hadn't expected him to be quite so…wet.

Not having seen any clothes out, she had just assumed that he would have changed in the bathroom as well, rather than enter the bedroom in only his towel…and what a short towel it was.

The dark haired stranger was only a few steps away from her, but he was so much taller than her that she had to tilt her head up slightly to make contact with those bright blue eyes. That was the only place she was looking at, of course.

Well, trying to. Rather than staring at that tanned, moist chest. Desperately trying.

Finally, he broke out into a smirk. "Hi."

The sinking feeling she had had in her stomach all morning was suddenly drowned out by the fluttering in her heart.

Good, God. She felt all…girly.

"H-hi…y-you must be my roommates' boyfriend." Well, that certainly came out  
smoothly.

To her surprise, he looked amused and the corners of his lips turned upwards.

"That's funny," he said, the same smile on his face.

"What?"

"I was about to say you must be my roommates' girlfriend."

Haley's face fell as the warning signal in her stomach churned louder. Uh oh.

"This is your dorm?" he asked.

Haley nodded. "And yours too?"

He held his hands up, and despite her brain being in overdrive she couldn't help but notice how the movement pulled against his towel. "Well, that's what I thought. It's the right room number."

"Huh…well…when I said I didn't have a preference for single-sex accommodation I didn't realise, the mixing of dorms would be quite so…mixed," Haley muttered.

He chuckled heartily, and the movement of his chest drew Haley's attention to his toned chest. Oh Lordy, he had great abs. Just looking at them made her feel light-headed. He had to work out. No man could be endowed with a body like that.

And, just like that, her own choice of vocabulary sent Haley's mind reeling.

At the thought of the word 'endowed', her eyes darted lower down, to his  
towel and images of what lay beneath it rushed to her mind.

Wait a minute. Was she actually thinking of what he looked like naked?

What the hell was happening to her? She was the good girl. The one who didn't go out every night or get drunk or have sex – that was Taylor's territory. Undressing some guy she'd never met before with her eyes was more Taylor's style too. So what was Haley thinking trying to follow in her footsteps?

She'd always known she was a late bloomer, but she didn't think that all her absent sexual energy would hit her with a wallop at one time. But, come to think of it, when else could it hit her? She was nineteen today. Wasn't that the age that women stopped growing? Her sexual energy had to arrive today, or it never would. Taylor would tell her to be grateful that it had arrived at all.

She wasn't.

So this was going to be her nightmare for this birthday. She'd get so overcome by this rush of new hormones that she'd drool at someone whose name she didn't know. And, since that was always the way her luck went, he'd catch her at it too. Of course he'd catch her, she realised. She hadn't done anything but stare at his towel for five minutes.

And he knew she wasn't staring at his _towel_.

Any second now she was going to start hyperventilating. And if she opened her mouth for air she'd start babbling, which would no doubt lead to her telling him what she had just been doing.

That had to be avoided at all costs.

Haley clenched her mouth shut, before sitting down on the edge of the bed and lying down.

Even with her eyes closed she heard the smile in his voice. "Are you okay?"

He was smirking at her. She knew it. She really wanted to wipe the smirk off his face. Of course, there was more than one way to do that.

Haley put her hand on her forehead, hoping to stop the rush of hormonal activity stirring up her body and replied snappily, "What does it look like?"

He didn't say anything. Instead, Mr. Sexy moved to sit down next to her.

And not just sort of next to her. He sat down right next to her. She should have asked him to move up and give her the space he should have realised she needed, only she was too busy enjoying the feeling of his bare forearm against hers.

That was wet too.

She was preparing something to say, when he spoke again. "I'm sorry, I guess this isn't really how you planned your first day at college."

_No, shit_, Haley thought.

"But, in my opinion," he added, "it's turned out good for me."

Haley opened her eyes to look at him before asking her next question. "How do you figure that?"

He grinned at her, and the word rogue sprang to her mind. This cross between a grin and a smirk could definitely be described as roguish. Damn those romance novels she read this summer. They were probably contributors to this hormonal overload.

He cleared his throat before saying, "There's a hot girl in my bedroom."

Haley flushed, but felt that odd fluttering sensation again when he said she was hot. Mr. Sexy himself thought she was hot. And now she was starting to feel hot. Haley breathed deeply before pretending to ignore his second comment, and replying to what he had said at first. "Well…it's unsettling anyway to have to deal with your first day at college. Everything's weird until you get into the right balance. Until then it's all…imbalanced."

Mr. Sexy looked thoughtful. Haley hadn't known you could do that donned only in a towel, but clearly it was possible. "Isn't it unbalanced?"

Not quite the reaction she had expected. "Excuse me?"

"You said imbalanced…but I think unbalanced is the correct word."

Haley sat up straight and opened her mouth to disagree, but with a start realised he was right. It was unbalanced. She had got it wrong. And she was tutor girl! That was her one thing and now she didn't even have that anymore. Not even an hour in college and she was already losing her intellect.

What was going on with her? She was turning into a sexual creature and losing her mind in the process!

"I know that, I just said it accidentally," Haley started babbling. "Everybody makes mistakes. I mean, I knew it was unbalanced, I was just thinking about hormonal imbalance and then it slipped out and –"

"Did you just say 'hormonal'?"

This time, Haley felt her blush creep all the way down her neck and arms, and it was as if her eyes bugged out of her sockets as reality sunk in. What a pretty picture that made. She bet he didn't think she was hot anymore.

"Why did you –" he started off, amused, but then cut himself off and appeared more solemn. "Oh."

Haley was still embarrassed, but curious about his sudden lack of interest. "What?"

"No, it's okay," he shrugged.

"What?" Haley pressed, hating that she didn't understand what he was thinking. She had always hated being left out of things.

He just shrugged his shoulders meaningfully.

Haley settled her hands on her hips and glared at him. "Can you please stop doing that and tell me what you are trying to say?" He was lucky he was sexy or he wouldn't have gotten the 'please'.

That was the last thing she had time to think before he said, "You know. I get it." He dropped his voice to a whisper, "It's that time of the month for you."

Haley wanted to scream. Instead she only stared at him.

Wondering why she was still staring at him like that, he asked, "Uh…do you want me to do something?"

Yes. Lots of things.

Haley paused a moment, trying to think, but she couldn't because there was a mostly naked, dripping wet man sitting next to her. "Can you put a shirt on?" she asked.

Nathan blinked, then realisation dawned. "Ah. Because you can't have sex."

The urge to scream grew tenfold. But, instead of managing a witty retort along the lines of, "As if I'd have sex with you, anyway," (she _would_), Haley flipped over to lie on her stomach and buried her face in the pillow.


	2. Mr Sexy In His Birthday Suit?

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews. I'm glad you guys all liked it. As far as a sequel is concerned, I'm unsure because I've never written a sequel before, but I had so much fun writing this so I wouldn't rule one out. Hope you enjoy this last part as well. :)**

**Chapter Two**

Twelve hours later Haley crawled into bed. After her meltdown, her roommate had avoided her while he put some clothes on, muttered something about sorting things down at the accommodation office and ran out the door. Haley hadn't seen him since.

She realized that it was somewhat ironic that for the first time in her life, fate had stepped in to give her a good birthday present in the form of a half-naked gorgeous man in her bedroom, and she had screwed it up by being too turned on without knowing how to react, and ultimately making him think she was PMSing.

Yeesh. The birthdays were just getting worse. Not that she had told Peyton and her parents that when they had taken her out to lunch.

She had truly appreciated the fact that all three of them had taken time to see her, especially Peyton who had her own college to worry about, which was unfortunately hours away from Haley! Okay, so it was only one and a half hours away, but it wasn't the same as when they could walk to each other's houses. They had said things wouldn't change, but Haley realised that they had already started to change. Normally she would have told Peyton about The Mr. Sexy Incident (whose name she had realized he had never told her - probably on purpose so she couldn't stalk him) minutes after it had happened. Today, Haley hadn't been able to tell her about it at all since the only time they saw each other her parents were there.

Peyton had been busy the rest of the day, but had promised to call in the morning, a conversation Haley was looking forward to enjoying, along with a nice cup of hot chocolate. After taking a look around the campus, she had gone back to the room and unpacked most of her things. On exiting the room, she'd noticed that the rest of the rooms on her floor were mostly occupied by girls so she had figured that it was _he who had no name_ who'd been allocated the wrong room.

Now tired after a long day that hadn't been exactly the worst birthday ever, but had still not broken the spell, Haley got under the covers of the bed by the side of the wall. Mr. Sexy may have put his bags down there, but he wasn't going to be staying here for long, and she had to claim the bed as her own before her new roommate moved in.

Just as Haley was pulling the covers around her neck she heard the door open and saw someone step inside before fumbling around for the light switch. When they finally found it, they flicked the switch upwards, and Haley saw that Mr. Sexy looked just as good in a polo t-shirt and jeans as he did in a towel. But not better, she mused.

He was carrying something in his hand and put it down on the table before taking off his trainers. Haley thought wildly that maybe he was going to strip without realizing she was there, but her now overactive sexual mind had spoken too soon as he saw her staring at him and nearly fell over.

"Are you okay?" Haley asked, sitting up when he stumbled onto the chair.

"Yeah, I just didn't see you there. You were pretty quiet."

"Sorry."

"I spoke to the people at the office and they're moving me to another room," he explained as he pulled off his socks, "but they can only give me one tomorrow. So it looks like we'll have to share for tonight."

Haley nodded, cringing over her attire. She didn't own the most seductive of sleepwear. "Okay," she told him, wondering what he wore to sleep.

What if he slept naked?

Oh, my.

She settled back under the covers and tried to lower her pulse through some deep breathing while he excused himself to go to the bathroom and change. He must not be sleeping naked then, she decided, if he was going to change there. If he slept in the nude, he wouldn't have had any scruples stripping in front of her. Unless he was sh-

No, Haley, she reminded herself. No one who slept in the nude was remotely shy.

All these images of Mr. Sexy in just his birthday suit were playing havoc on her nerves so she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the least sexy thing she could think of.

Teletubbies.

Unfortunately, the process didn't really have time to work since Mr. Sexy returned from the bathroom just then, fully clothed once more, but with a different shirt.

"Are you going out?" she asked, hoping that it hadn't sounded as desperate as her voice did in her head.

"Uh, yeah. I met some guys from the basketball team and they're going to show us around."

Basketball. He was a jock. She should have known. "Right."

"Do you want to come with us? I know some girls are coming too."

Haley shook her head. "I don't think so."

"Are you sure? I know they won't mind."

"No, its okay. Today hasn't been…well, great, to say the least. I mean, I expected a shitty birthday anyway so that wasn't a surprise, but I think I'm just going to go to bed."

"Today's your birthday?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"Oh…well, you sure you don't want to come out? Celebrate a little?" Nathan gestured to the door.

This was it. Her last chance to actually do something; maybe hang out with the cool kids, who'd sorely avoided her in high school. But, in typical Haley James fashion she shook her head again. "Thanks, but I think I'm just going to go to sleep."

He nodded and started to go out before swivelling round and looking at her, "Hey, I almost forgot – again. I never…I'm Nathan," he said finally. "Nathan Scott."

Even his name was sexy. "Haley James."

He smiled at her. "Hi. See you in the morning," he added, and then closed the door quietly as he left the room.

* * *

An hour later Haley still hadn't been able to fall asleep. It was past eleven thirty and she was dog-tired, but thanks to the thunderstorm that had broken out ten minutes ago, sleep didn't seem anywhere nearby.

When she saw the lightening strike, she buried her head underneath her pillow a little deeper so she wouldn't be able to hear the thunder as much. No such luck. It roared, as loud as ever, causing Haley to miss the sound of the door opening and Nathan's return.

She only realised it when he said, "Hi," in that deep, throaty voice of his, surprising her so that she fell off the bed.

Nathan ran over there and picked her up as if she weighed nothing before placing her back down on the bed. "Are you all right?"

Haley nodded and managed a smile she didn't feel, thanks to her embarrassment. "What happened to your big night out?"

He pointed to the window as he sat down on the edge of the bed opposite her. "Rain kind of put a crimp on that plan. There weren't any taxis nearby and the place we were going to is kind of far away so some of us just came back."

"What are the others doing?" Haley wondered.

"Oh, I think they're off to have a party in someone's room."

"And you didn't want to join them?"

Nathan shook his head. "Nah. Oh, wait a minute," he added and reached into his pocket before pulling out a small rectangular object and handing it to her. "Here."

Haley turned it over in her hands. Then, she glanced up at him and her gaze narrowed. "You know, I don't have PMS!"

"Er, okay…" he replied, immediately growing uncomfortable.

"You can't just assume that it's that time of the month if I'm in a bad mood. Sometimes people just get into bad moods. It happens. And how did you know I always eat chocolate when I have PMS?" she asked finally.

Nathan cleared his throat and rubbed his hands together. "I didn't. I just bought that for you because you said it was your birthday."

Haley's eyes widened and she stared back down at the packet of chocolate in her hands. "Oh."

"I just got it from a vending machine," he admitted, "since nothing is open. And it might be a little wet and squished from my pocket because I bought it before we went out in case I forgot on the way back and –"

"Thank you," Haley said softly. "This is really nice of you."

He shrugged, as if to say, 'It's just chocolate.' But all he did say was, "You're welcome. Of course now you can have a much better birthday present," he added, a spark in his eyes.

"Which is?" Haley asked, warily.

"Well, you can have sex with me," he said, with a cheeky grin.

Haley's mouth dropped and he burst out laughing.

"I'm just kidding."

"Yeah, well…I know that."

They shared a smile before Nathan moved to stand up, just at the same time the thunder resumed. Haley did her best not to, but at the loud crack she shook visibly, and he noticed.

"Afraid of thunder?"

He posed it as a question even though he clearly thought it a statement. Haley shook her head anyway. "N-no."

He nodded with an amused smile on his lips and Haley wished for nothing more than to die of embarrassment. "I guess that means you couldn't sleep because you were waiting up for me, then," he winked.

He _winked_ at her. Nobody winked at anyone anymore…it just wasn't done. But damn if it wasn't turning her on.

"Don't worry, I'll protect you from the thunder," he said, with that smirk plastered on his face.

Haley finally found the ability to from sentences somewhere from the recesses of her brain. "I don't need protection from the thunder, thank you very much."

Nathan grinned, but just nodded. "If you say so."

"I do," she said defiantly.

He smiled at her for a few moments, making Haley blush slightly with nerves and anticipation. They shouldn't have, but his words surprised her just as much as his actions did. "Happy Birthday, Haley," he whispered and leaned across the small divide to brush his lips against her cheek every so gently.

Haley was certain she was about to sigh, but was saved from that source of humiliation by the onslaught of another. A loud crack of thunder rang through the air, making her instinctively bury her face in Nathan's chest.

"It's just thunder," he said into her ear.

"I know," she pouted. She should have jerked away, but he had rested his hands on the side of her waist and it felt really nice. Way more than nice.

"I guess we should go to sleep," he said, breaking away. "It's late."

Haley nodded her agreement and he gently eased her down on the bed, helping to pull the covers up.

He went to the bathroom to change, greeting Haley with the glorious view of the tight fit of his jeans, but when he glanced over his shoulder at her, she pretended to be mesmerised by the clock on the side table.

_11:57_

She realised that in a few minutes her birthday would be over, and she'd have to wait another year for the dreadful curse to befall her again. But, looking at the chocolate packet next to her clock, she couldn't help thinking that this birthday hadn't really been all that bad.

And, as Nathan made his way into the bed, a few centimetres away from her, clad in only boxer shorts she realised that it had actually been much better than she had expected. In fact, it just might have been the best bad birthday ever.

Once he was settled under the covers, with them only at halfway up deliberately so that he could taunt her with that delicious chest of his, he looked over at her. "You think you can handle the thunder or would you like to me to get in there with you?"

Normally she hated guys like this who thought they were god's gift to women. But, she just couldn't hate Nathan. If she was really honest with herself, Nathan really was God's gift to women. One of them at least.

Maybe he wasn't as bad as the others. After all, he had bought her chocolate. Ah, chocolate. The ultimate gift. But that was going off track. She was thinking of Nathan. But she could think of chocolate and Nathan…

Haley screwed up her eyes hard and decided she didn't want to go down that road. At least, not while he was in the same room as her.

"No, I don't," she replied curtly.

"As long as you're sure." And with that he flashed that sexy smirk at her as he reached up to turn the lamp off, casting them into darkness once more. "Goodnight, Haley James."

"Goodnight, Nathan Scott," she returned and snuggled down into bed, purposely lying so that she faced him. The position meant she saw the alarm clock once more.

_00:01_

"Sweet dreams," Nathan's deep voice drifted though the air.

Haley grinned to herself, wondering what the day would bring.

**THE END**


End file.
